~ thoughts on that meandering path we call life

Stillness of Life

It’s funny, but while I’ve always heard that life speeds up as you grow older — that the years spin faster and time moves more quickly — it’s also true that it becomes quieter as you age. Minutes and moments seem to congeal into a sort of Mega-Minute; a lengthy, paused state that allows you to walk around each moment and inspect it, much as one might linger in a garden and appraise it, weed it, water it, savor it.

I’ve come to a point in life that is free of much clutter and much noise. I’m not tied to a cell phone, I have a little job that does not rob me of sleep, and I was weaned from TV many years ago. So now, with our children mostly grown and having work schedules and other things to occupy them, I find that I have time to reflect.

And what do I reflect on?

Nothing — and it’s the most interesting nothing that I’ve ever experienced.

But this “nothing” is not an absence, but rather a presence. It’s not a void, but the removal of every obstruction from meeting.

It’s a still, small voice that I hear on the other end of the line.

It’s a whisper, like a signature upon the universe, which is everywhere and always there, yet hidden until noticed.

When I was a child, I heard this whisper often. I lingered over flowers and ant hills, rocks and pebbles, and over every rough textured surface I came upon. But then I grew older and forgot how to peer into things deeply, and so the years went their way.

But now it’s as if I remember, and I’m once again a child who is just becoming acquainted with the universe. And the One behind it all.